As we have reached Palm Sunday I wanted to provide links to previous writings here on The Good Word blog and one found at the Bible Junkies blog Please also go The Word to find the most recent columns for Palm Sunday and Easter The Palm Sunday post is a reflection on how quickly our attention can

In the first installment I looked at the ldquo Judases rdquo and ldquo Jameses rdquo in the New Testament There seems only one good option for whom the Judas Jude to whom this letter is attributed could be the Judas Jude who is the brother of Jacob James and Jesus nbsp Modern scholarship h

In January 2012 I began blogging a commentary on the Gospel of Mark available at the Bible Junkies blog and now at America Magazine which I completed just last week My somewhat ambitious goal is to write an online commentary on every New Testament document though I have given myself the equally

Last year I spent some time reading the powerful book The Night of the Confessor by nbsp the Czech Roman Catholic priest Tomas Halik His readings of the Gospel in light of the Church today moved me to write four blog posts at Bible Junkies I reproduce one of those posts here Church as quot Commu

In case you have not heard, Pope Benedict XVI resigned. Nowadays, to choose a successor they gather all of the Cardinals under 80 from around the world and fly them to Rome to choose a new Pope. But how did Peter become the first Bishop of Rome, the man we call "Pope"? Practice, practice, practice? No, that’s how you get to Carnegie Hall not Rome. So, what are the lessons that the New Testament offers for those who are about to choose a successor to Peter as the Bishop of Rome? First of all, each Gospel tells us that Jesus called Simon bar Jonah early in his ministry to follow him and Peter answered that call . This is a call all the papabile have already answered, so they are in good position in that respect, though Simon bar Jonah was a Jewish fisherman when he was called, which none of the Cardinals can claim to be. Second, Jesus gave Simon a nickname, and this fact in itself is very cool, but the content of the nickname, Cephas or Petros, “the Rock,” is even better (Mk. 3:16; Matt. 16:18; Jn. 1:42). Once Simon received his nickname, he generally was called Peter, except by his mother and Paul; she doubtless kept calling him Simon and Paul kept calling him Cephas, probably to show that he still knew Aramaic. We do not know if any of the possibilities for Pope have nicknames, such as Marc “Frenchy” Ouellet or Peter “The Young” Turkson, but even if they did, their names were not given to them directly by Jesus, so this might not be a deciding factor. Upon becoming Pope they do get to choose a new name, which is itself cool, but not as excellent as having Jesus choose one for you.

One of the ways in which we interact with the Bible is through film and this is not a new undertaking for filmmakers. As Bible and Cinema: Fifty Key Films (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), edited by Adele Reinhartz, demonstrates, filmmakers have been making biblical films almost from the beginning of the movie industry. This is one of the compelling aspects of this book: it reviews films dating back to Life of Moses (1909-1910) and up to A Serious Man (2009), with every decade in between represented. It is also a difficult book to assess as it is not always clear on what basis films have been chosen for review or how one is to understand the book as a whole.